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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492811">Shatter the Dark</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter'>JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MacGyver (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Found Family, Gen, Guardian Angel AU, Jack as a guardian angel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:41:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,611</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492811</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Riley vividly remembers the day Jack vanished.<br/>Vanished is exactly the right word to use. Because Riley can find anyone if she tries hard enough. In a world of social security numbers and credit cards and selfies, everyone leaves a digital paper trail, byte-sized breadcrumbs to lead her to them. But Jack? Jack literally doesn't exist anymore."</p><p>No matter what anyone says, Riley refuses to accept that Jack abandoned her family. But the secrets he was keeping are far more complicated than she expected. And the lengths she'll have to go to get him back are more than she could imagine.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) &amp; Riley Davis, Jack Dalton/Diane Davis (MacGyver TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shatter the Dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I blame two separate books, the explosion of the Supernatural fandom, and my own obsessive need to give Jack a better reason for leaving the Davises for this one.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Riley vividly remembers the day Jack vanished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vanished is exactly the right word to use. Because Riley can find anyone if she tries hard enough. In a world of social security numbers and credit cards and selfies, everyone leaves a digital paper trail, byte-sized breadcrumbs to lead her to them. But Jack? Jack literally doesn't exist anymore. It's like he walked out the door after laying Elwood out cold, and fell off the face of the earth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mom says to forget him. But Riley can't. Jack is different, he wouldn't just leave. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tries everything. In and out of juvie and probation and once, a legit prison, for her forays into government databases that take top level clearance to access the legal ways, because the only way to make someone disappear that completely from every public record is to make them a whole new identity. Building a facial rec program from scratch to scan the limitless feeds of social media and security cameras for just a glimpse of a familiar face. Stealing a car and driving all the way to the town Jack casually mentioned he was from in Texas, only to discover that it's empty. And has been for the past seventy years.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s like Jack didn’t exist to anyone but her and Mom. He’s not in any government database. Not the ones that keep tabs on regular civilians, and not the ones that record operatives and agents. He has no driver’s license, no social security number, no draft registry or blood donor registry or voting registration or library card. He’s not on Facebook or twitter or any other social media. The only proof Riley has that he ever existed is the blurry selfie of them on her cheap flip phone that he took the day they went to the little pop-up carnival that she insisted she was too old for but secretly loved. It’s so small and out of focus that Jack looks like a whole different person. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes almost six years before she finds the first clue. On a sketchy dark web conspiracy theory forum, a blurry picture of the same geometric symbol that she remembers Jack had tattooed on his wrist, the one he usually covered up with that ridiculous leather cuff.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A symbol, according to the anonymous poster, of the elite race of Guardians. Interdimensional beings, who, if you believe the stories, have taken an interest in the human race and will attach themselves to people or families, to learn about the ways humans live. Why, Riley can’t fathom. But...it makes sense in a way nothing else has. And she of all people knows that sometimes, the truth is harder to believe than anything else. She needs something to chase. Something to believe in. And now, she has it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's hard to sort the 'facts' from the clearly ridiculous posited theories or pontificating. Anyone who claims to know much about the Guardians is just looking for attention. Even the little online forums that spring up around the topic are full of things Riley can tell at a glance are flat-out invention. But every once in a while, there's a grain of truth. A grain she sorts out and squirrels away, slowly building a file that will lead her to the real story.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Apparently, Guardians used to be like legitimate guardian angels, thus the name. Protectors of the humans they cared for. Until one of them saved their human counterpart so publicly that the race was almost exposed to the world at large, and thus, a code regulating The Guardians’ actions was created by their own rulers. According to this Code, physical interference in the fates of the human realm is forbidden. Some sort of real-life 'prime directive', she guesses. Those who disobey face immediate banishment to the Liminal. A space between their world and the humans'.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What happened to Jack finally makes sense. His fight with Elwood was the first time he'd actively interfered in Riley's world in a way that changed the status quo. He must have known he was going to be taken, and left so they wouldn't watch it happen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now that she knows where he is, Riley knows what she has to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There's only one way for a human to get sent to the Liminal. To become such a threat to the Guardians that they have no other choice. She figures posting everything everyone has ever collected about them, under her real name, to every forum on the dark web, is a good start.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The portal that opens up behind her less than a minute later is a bit of a shock. But she doesn't have very long to be impressed with the very not mundane appearance in her apartment before her world goes black.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she wakes up, she's surrounded by black grass, a golden sky overhead traced with glowing purple specks like stars. She feels around her for the backpack she’d had the foresight to strap on her shoulders before she put her plan into motion, and is relieved to find it there. So is the knife she'd bought from a pawnshop and now has strapped to her leg. If the stories are true, the Liminal is far from safe. But she's survived six stints in detention centers. She knows how to keep a sharp eye out and protect herself from threats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's not sure how she's going to find Jack here. There's no telling how big the Liminal is. It might be as big as the world. And as she quickly establishes, her technology is no good here. Her phone, the screen cracked from how hard she fell, is flickering and the same strange little geometric symbol keeps popping up and vanishing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can't even turn the damn thing off to save the battery for the flashlight, so she tucks it into her backpack and starts off toward a range of blood-red mountains in the distance, rising above the sea of waist-high black grass. It’s a place to start, at least. The black grass meadow looks empty. The only thing moving here is her. She wonders why. There’s usually a good reason places are empty and abandoned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The mountains, at least, will provide cover. She feels too exposed and defenseless alone in the middle of the silence and stillness. She’s good at blending in, at making herself just another one of the sea of faces and jumpsuits. Standing out is dangerous. Standing out gets you killed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hears it before she sees it. The whoosh of wings. She instinctively ducks, wondering what kind of predators this world supports, if to them she's nothing more than a field mouse in a meadow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pulls the knife out of its sheath and waits in a crouch, ready to explode into a fury of action if the creature attacks. She doesn’t want to kill anything, not unless she has to. But she has a feeling this place operates on a law she knows too well. Kill or be killed. Win or die. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there's only a thump. Then silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then a whisper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Riley?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks up, stunned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack is standing in front of her. He looks almost the same as he did when he stepped out of their door, aside from a few more lines on his face around his eyes and the corners of his lips, crinkles she knows are born of pain, because Mom got the same kind after Elwood started knocking her around. The tattoo on his wrist is glowing a bright crimson that pulses in a familiar rhythm. The same one-two pattern of the unstoppable flicker on her phone. And spread out from his shoulders are a pair of massive cinnamon-brown wings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She drops the knife and throws herself at him, eight years' worth of sobs tearing out of her throat. Jack wraps his arms and wings around her and pulls her close. He smells like damp leaves and dark earth and rain now, instead of leather oil and chili powder and the gel stuff he always used to make his faux-hawk stand up, but under all that there’s something she still recognizes. Something that no time or freaky in-between world can change. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn't know what happens now. Whether they'll make things worse or better. Whether the single story she read about a Guardian's human lover entering the Liminal to get them back will apply to an adopted child as well. But if all it takes is a love strong enough to risk everything, then she thinks they'll be alright.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack is crying, too, and every single one of their tears that hits the ground splashes and widens, creating a silver pool in the middle of the black grass, with them at the center. And when the familiar blackness washes over her, Riley closes her eyes. This time, she isn't going into the unknown alone. Jack is holding onto her, strong and familiar and safe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she wakes up on the floor of her apartment, in a puddle of water, to the banal familiarity of police sirens and crying kids, she can't even be upset that the whole room looks like it's been flooded and her rig and all her files are definitely wrecked. And when Mrs. Lambert from downstairs comes pounding on the door and shouts that her bathroom ceiling is leaking and Riley's going to have to pay for repairs if she overfilled the bathtub and flooded the place again, Riley just opens the door with a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's fine, Mrs. Lambert," She says, turning around and then opening the door a little wider. "My dad's here. He can fix anything."</span>
</p>
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